Team Fortress 2

Season one of Highlander was a huge success with over 300 teams signing up for the league. How better to follow up? Season two! Sign-ups are open for this next season of Highlander at ETF2L. Better get your team together as signups close March 11 and the season starts Sunday, March 18.

It's been pointed out to us that there's a regularly updated comic series running on Deviant Art by "spacerocketbunny" called "Be Efficient Be Polite." We're booking the rest of the afternoon off so we can catch up and read it all.

Notch is currently busy "streaming development of something that probably never will be released at all," which seems a shame, because it's a lovely little Team Fortress 2 RTS. You can watch Noch magically turning numbers and letters into scenes of TF2's eight classes fragging each other in the livestream box above. Don't worry, "Herp Derp Herp Fortress" is only a working title for now. You can suggest some alternative names in the live chat happening alongside the stream on Notch's Twitch TV channel.

We've seen some impressive fan-made Portal guns in the past, but they've been rare, costly one-off projects. Valve are giving us the chance to get hold of our own Aperture Science Handheld Portal Devices without having to burn ourselves horribly putting together an injection mould. Joystiq mention that, at Valve's request, toy manufacturers, NECA have put together a life-sized Portal gun. It'll hit the shops this summer with a $130 price tag attached.

There will be lights and those lights will change colour, but will it make the "pwung" noise? There's only one way to find out, and that's to buy at least five. Perhaps ten. Maybe more. More. MORE.

NECA will also be releasing a line of Left 4 Dead, Team Fortress 2 and Half-Life action figures, a few of which were shown off at the NYC Toy Fair. The Team Fortress 2 wiki has a snap of the new figures, you'll find that below along with a few shots of that Portal gun. Baggsy the Heavy.

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Source Engine Changes (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)

Fixed a client crash related to dynamic model loading

Fixed dedicated server not receiving restart requests when updates are released

Team Fortress 2

Fixed playing incorrect sounds for The Overdose

Fixed a broken Engineer animation for The Pomson 6000

Fixed Steam inventory/trading not showing the correct item level for some items

Fixed Steam inventory/trading sort order not matching the in-game backpack

Updates to Team Fortress 2, Day of Defeat: Source and Half-Life 2: Deathmatch have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:Source Engine Changes (TF2, DoD:S, HL2:DM)

Fixed a client crash related to dynamic model loading

Fixed dedicated server not receiving restart requests when updates are released

Team Fortress 2

Fixed playing incorrect sounds for The Overdose

Fixed a broken Engineer animation for The Pomson 6000

Fixed Steam inventory/trading not showing the correct item level for some items

Fixed Steam inventory/trading sort order not matching the in-game backpack

Valve's $100 Valentine's Day gag was actually taken up by a lot of people, who figured the money was well spent since it gave them a chance to broadcast a message to the entire Team Fortress 2 community.

What resulted, then, were not actual engagements, but people making Half-Life 3 jokes for the whole world to see. Which may be what Valve expected all along, and is why the entry barrier to such power was set so high.

Alliance of Valiant Arms, the popular Free-to-Play game on Steam, is having a special Weekend Deal to commemorate their latest update which includes Steam achievements!

Now through Monday at 10AM Pacific Time, all in-game purchases will net you double the G Coins in A.V.A.! Additionally, a new A.V.A. themed item, the "Black Rose", has been added into Team Fortress 2. Complete the AVA achievement, "1st One Down", to unlock the TF2 item and you'll also receive the TF2-inspired "Holy Mackerel" for your A.V.A. character!